Cloud hosting company FireHost has announced the expansion of its operations into Europe, with news that its hosting services are now available at data centres in London and Amsterdam.

Founded in 2006, the US-based company has previously provided its services to European customers via its US data centres in Texas and Arizona, but it has seen demand grow from Europe-based businesses. And along with increasing requirements to store data within the European Union, this has underpinned FireHost’s latest expansion.

So whilst FireHost has always operated in Europe, local firms or international organizations based in the region can now use its services knowing that their websites and applications are hosted in-region and thus fall under the jurisdiction of European data protection legislation.

FireHost announced $10m in Series B funding back in September, with a view towards helping the company scale rapidly and expand into Europe. It says one of its key differentiators over other cloud hosting companies is that FireHost doesn’t tie its customers into lengthy contracts – they can pay each month and can leave any time.

Companies such as Johnson and Johnson, KKR, Farmers Insurance Group, Johns Hopkins University, and Fossil are already using FireHost’s cloud services, and last year the company claims to have prevented 50 million external hacks, including SQL injections, cross-site scripting and brute force attempts. As such, FireHost has proven particularly popular in industries with strict data protection requirements, such as eCommerce, financial and healthcare organisations.

“The elevated importance of securing company websites and data against malicious attacks has led to increasing demand for secure cloud hosting environments,” said Katrena Drake, Director of European Operations at FireHost. “The success of our business model within our US facilities has been phenomenal and we’re excited about bringing our approach to the European marketplace.”